


Suitcase of Memories

by m2d2tumblr



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Childhood Memories, Gen, Pre-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-16 12:11:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18094052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m2d2tumblr/pseuds/m2d2tumblr
Summary: Klaus looks at the building in front of him, with its iron gate, tall looming doors and Umbrella motif’s, he feels like he can feel his father’s cold, disappointed stare on him. But that’s not possible now, his father’s dead and nowhere to be found even to Klaus.It’s been thirteen years since him and his siblings left the place they used to call home, and Klaus uses that word loosely.





	Suitcase of Memories

**Author's Note:**

> First Umbrella Academy fic i’ve written. Un-beta’d, all corrections and suggestions welcome!
> 
> Title from Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper. 
> 
> Please leave a Kudos or Comment if you like it!
> 
> (Ps. In case you couldn’t tell, I have no idea how the process to become a police officer works, esp in the US. So please just go with it as being like getting into college! Thanks!)

It’s been thirteen years since him and his siblings left the place they used to call home, and Klaus uses that word loosely. 

Number Three left first, surprising in that while not like Luther, she was never one of the more outspoken of siblings nor the most rebellious, no that prize went to Number Five; and we all know how that turned out. But at the same time, Klaus supposes that it made sense. Her desire for fame, and an already established career outside the academy meant that she was probably the most suited out of all of them to leave.  
It’s a role in some action movie that pills her out west, she claims it’s too hard to find the right opportunities near home, but they all know that she’s chaffing under the rules and regulations of their childhood the same as the rest of them. 

Number Seven left a few months after Allison was gone. One day she was there , and the next her room is empty of her belongings and only Pogo and mom have gotten to say goodbye. Klaus had felt a bit hurt, he was never the closest to Vanya, but she had still been his sister and he’d hoped she would have at least bothered to make some excuse like Allison before leaving. He also knows that it was Ben and Diego, Number Six and Number Two who had felt the most betrayed. 

Ben had told him on one of their quiet nights in, not too much after Vanya had left, that her and Diego used to plan to leave together. That only a few years before, they had planned to find an apartment together and make a normal life away from their father and everything of his that hurt. He knows that they’d invited Ben to come with them, but he’d said someone had to stay behind to make sure Klaus didn’t do anything too stupid. (And doesn’t that memory still make his chest warm.)

In the end, none of those promises were any good; Vanya left without Diego, the stutter that their Number Two had spent his childhood training away, came back with a vengeance for the weeks after and Klaus was alone in the end – to make many a stupid decision. 

(In reality Number Seven’s departure is not as spontaneous as it seems. In between her remaining siblings missions, and training and other extra curriculars, Vanya realizes that she’s gone a week and a half without speaking to anyone other than Pogo and mom. It’s that realization which makes her pack her bags and leave. None of the other realize, but she feels its better this way, it’s not like anyone would really notice the absence.)

Diego applied to the police academy behind their fathers back, and spent the waiting period looking for a place to stay in case he didn’t get accepted. He’d decided back then that there was no way he was staying in that house any longer than he had to. Diego’s only regret had been leaving mom behind, Ben and Klaus had each other, and Luther was happy enough being their fathers number 1.He’d come home from a mission one day, to find his acceptance letter on his bead with a place of 2 shortbread cookies and a small note that said congratulations, and that’s when he knows it’s ok. Of course, Klaus only knows this because Diego had actually told them that he was leaving (though the details came some years later, in a rarer moment of emotional confessions). At the time he’d also suggested that Ben and Klaus should leave too, ‘before our father gets you killed for his own gain’ had been his exact words. 

Klaus would have been happy to leave the minute he’d turned eighteen, but Ben hadn’t wanted to risk losing control of his powers away from their house, where he at least had the security of people who knew how to deal with him. In hindsight, Klaus wishes he’d forced his brother, that he’d made him listen and risked leaving the house when they could. But as much as Klaus had hated the house and their father, he’d loved his brother more. So, keeping the awful look Ben got on his face when he thought about the consequences of his powers in mind, Klaus had kept his protests to himself. Besides, it wasn’t like they had had the career options like the others did. 

Except, then Ben had gotten killed and all Klaus could think about was that his brother had died fulfilling their father’s wishes. Their father who’d had a statue made of his brother at age 13 rather than the age he died at (probably because that was the last time anyone of them had been proper members of the Umbrella Academy). 

His siblings came back for the funeral, those that weren’t already there, or missing, or dead. Klaus doesn’t really remember that night much. He knows he was higher than he’d ever been before, and that it was the last night he spent under the same roof as his father. He still hadn’t had a career or a job, or even a place to stay, but somehow he’d survived. That only made him feel worse, he could have survived with Ben too. 

In the end only Luther was left, Number One till the end. Klaus knows that he never really forgave any of them for leaving, the same way they never forgave him for staying. As always, their father was the one to make the decision for him, exiling Luther to the moon all by himself, for some purpose known only to himself. 

Klaus looks at the building in front of him, with its iron gate, tall looming doors and Umbrella motif’s, he feels like he can feel his father’s cold, disappointed stare on him. But that’s not possible now, his father’s dead and nowhere to be found even to Klaus. And Klaus has come back to the house that saw some of his best and worst memories. It’s funny Klaus thinks, that he probably considers this moment as both one of the best and worst. His asshole fathers gone and he’s about to see his siblings after a long time, but his father’s gone and Klaus feels like maybe they were owed something more than a quiet heart attack and a life full of unanswered questions. 

Still, he’s back and maybe he can see mom after so many years, and maybe he can have a nicer meeting with his siblings than last time, though it is funny that they only seem to get together on weddings and funerals these day’s.


End file.
